He was in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps
The Tatler 24 December 1947
Image © Illustrated London News Group. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
The Streatham Society |
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Col. Stanley Preston of Streatham.Awarded an OBE
He was in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Tatler 24 December 1947 Image © Illustrated London News Group. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
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On This Day 24th December 1932 Cynthia Payne was born
Cynthia Diane Payne (1932–2015), madam, was born Cynthia Diane Paine on 24 December 1932 at 67 London Road, Bognor Regis, Sussex, the elder daughter of Nelson Arthur Paine (1904–1979), hairdresser, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Light. Her father was mostly absent, working as a ladies’ hairdresser on the Union Castle Line. To clear debts, and provide for her son Darrell, Payne soon supplemented her income from waitressing. A regular customer, who proved to be a prostitute, asked to rent her flat when she was out in the evenings. Payne soon joined the profession herself. Her preferred advertisement in telephone boxes was ‘Erections & Demolitions’. Her property empire grew to four flats and then to a small house in Edencourt Road, Streatham, where she adopted the style ‘Mrs’. She bought Cranmore, a substantial house in a better part of Streatham at 32 Ambleside Avenue, Payne had established the style of business that was to bring notoriety. Her monthly ‘parties’ at the ‘House of 1001 Delights’ would begin with a pornographic display and enough food and drink to lift the spirits. The men would ask a girl to ‘go upstairs’. A friend suggested she should charge, so she innovated with counterfeit-proof twenty-year-old Luncheon Vouchers for which men paid up to £25, according to services required. There were discounts for the old, the disabled, and the impotent. She tried to restrict ‘guests’, as she called them, to the over-forties; they were more appreciative and less trouble than their unleashed juniors. She booked a suitable girl to make a man of son Darrell on his sixteenth birthday. He made a career in accountancy. Cranmore grew busy. No neighbours complained, but the police observed the house and counted 249 men and 50 women going in. They were distracted by the dustbins, where they had spotted ‘a “female type” of a notably masculine disposition bringing out the refuse’ (Bailey, 2). On 6 December 1978 the police arrived with a warrant to investigate what they believed to be the illicit sale of alcohol. Payne’s instinct was to invite them in, but they were transfixed by the sight of a naked black woman coming down the stairs and a queue of men going up, with many more huddled in the hall in various stages of undress—in all, fifty-three men and thirteen women. The men included local worthies such as the vicar. When the police asked his reverence some questions, he said, ‘I demand to see my solicitor’, adding, ‘who is in the next bedroom’ (The Independent, 17 Nov 2015). It was later alleged the partygoers included some of the highest in the land. Mrs Payne was affronted when asked for names: ‘Me morals is low. But me ethics is high’ She died at King’s College Hospital on 15 November 2015, of heart problems exacerbated by diabetes. She received a humanist funeral at Streatham Park Cemetery on 9 December. Her wealth at death £1,269,315 net: probate, 25 April 2016, CGLPA England & Wales Source: Christine Hamilton. 24th December 1968
After the Streatham Hill theatre closed as a live theatre, shows continued at the Odeon and they had several years of annual pantomime as well as other shows and concerts and ballet. The Odeon was refurbished and as on this poster from 1968 the theatre is advertised as “the lavish Odeon”. Luther Grosvenor, former resident of 3 Rutford Road, was born On This Day 23 December 1946
Luther James Grosvenor is an English rock musician, who played guitar in Spooky Tooth, briefly in Stealers Wheel and, under the pseudonym Ariel Bender, in Mott the Hoople and Widowmaker. Close friend to Samuel Johnson and owner of a brewery in Southwark and resident at "Streatham Park/Place" situated in the Furzedown area of Streatham. Educated at Eton and Oxford. His coffin is in the crypt of St Leonard's Church next to his mother-in-law Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Houghton Library, Harvard University On This Day 22 December 1909 Patricia Hayes was born
Patricia Lawlor Hayes(1909–1998), actress, was born on 22 December 1909 at 128 Sternhold Avenue, Streatham, the daughter of George Frederick Hayes, an Irish protestant (who converted to Catholicism) working as a civil service clerk in the Admiralty, a job he hated, and his wife, Florence Alice Lawlor, a mother who was keen to achieve her own stage ambitions through her daughter. The family later lived at 129 Pathfield Road Patricia Hayes studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where she won the Bancroft gold medal in 1928, her judges being Dame Edith Evans, Sir Gerald Du Maurier, and Frank Cellier. On This Day 22 December 1975 Madame Yevonde died
Yvonne Middleton née Cumbers- photographer, was born Yevonde Philone Cumbers on 5 January 1893 at The Cottage, St Julian's Road, Streatham, the daughter of Frederick Cumbers, a director of Johnstone and Cumbers, manufacturers of printing inks, and Ethel Westerton. In 1910 while still a student on the continent, Yevonde joined the women's suffrage movement, promoting female emancipation. In defiance of her genteel upbringing she decided to take up a profession and, after seeing an advertisement for a photographer's apprentice in The Suffragette, settled upon photography. Some of her work contained in the link below: https://www.npg.org.uk/.../person/mp06547/madame-yevonde... Image of Yevonne Middleton, Gertrde Larence and George Bernard Shaw. ©National Portrait Gallery On This Day 21 December Dame Rebecca West was born
West was born Cicely Isabel Fairfield on December 21, 1892 in London, to Charles and Isabella Fairfield. The family moved to 21 Streatham Place before Cecily was two years old, and she later reimagined the house in her novel The Fountain Overflows. Novelist, journalist, critic, and feminist, Dame Rebecca West (1892-1983) is considered one of the finest prose writers in twentieth-century England. She wrote under the penname Rebecca West. She has since become legendary, not only as an outspoken feminist and mistress of H.G. Wells, but also as the prolific author of novels like The Return of the Soldier, which helped to define an era. By mid-career in 1947, West was featured on the cover of Time and the story hailed her as “indisputably the world’s No. 1 woman writer.” Her wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West ©National Portrait Gallery - Image On This Day 21 December 1937 Henry Aubrey Woodwell, a wine merchant died. A resident of Brynbella, 33 Streatham High Road
Licensee at: Princess Alexandria, 209 Westbourne Park road, Paddington W11 Duke Of Cornwall, 127 Ledbury road, Paddington W11 Hanover Arms, 326 Kennington Park Road, Lambeth SE11 |
AuthorMark Bery, Secretary Streatham Society Archives
March 2024
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